The saints everlasting rest

I would not have thee, as the Papists, draw them in pictures, nor use such ways to represent them. This, as it is a course forbidden by GOD, so it would but seduce and draw down thy heart: but get the liveliest picture of them in thy mind that possibly thou canst; meditate on them, as if thou wert all the while beholding them, and as if thou wert even hearing the hallelujahs; till thou canst say, methinks I see a glimpse of the glory! Methinks I hear the shouts of joy and praise! Methinks I even stand by Abraham and David, Peter and Paul, and more of these triumphing souls! Methinks I see the Son of GOD appearing in the clouds, and the world standing at his bar to receive their doom! Methinks I hear him say, Come ye blessed of my Father; and see […] go rejoicing into the […] of their Lord! My very dreams of these things have deeply affected me; and should not these just suppositions affect me much more? What if I had seen with Paul those unutterable things; ⟨p. 357⟩should I not have been exalted (and that perhaps above measure) as well as he? What if I had stood in the room of Stephen, and seen heaven opened, and Christ sitting at the right hand of GOD? Surely that one sight was worth the suffering his storm of stones. O that I might but see what he did see, though I also suffered what he did suffer! What if I had seen such a sight as Michaiah saw? The Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the hosts of heaven standing on his right •and on his left. Why these men of GOD did see such things; and I shall shortly see far more than ever they saw, till they were loosed from the flesh, as I must be. And thus you see how the familiar conceiving of the state of blessedness, as the Spirit hath in a condescending language expressed it, and our strong suppositions raised from our bodily senses, will further our affections in this heavenly work.

I would not have thee, as the Papists, draw them in pictures, nor use such ways to represent them. This, as it is a course forbidden by GOD, so it would but seduce and draw down thy heart: but get the liveliest picture of them in thy mind that possibly thou canst; meditate on them, as if thou wert all the while beholding them, and as if thou wert even hearing the hallelujahs; till thou canst say, methinks I see a glimpse of the glory! Methinks I hear the shouts of joy and praise! Methinks I even stand by Abraham and David, Peter and Paul, and more of these triumphing souls! Methinks I see the Son of GOD appearing in the clouds, and the world standing at his bar to receive their doom! Methinks I hear him say, Come ye blessed of my Father; and see go rejoicing into the of their Lord! My very dreams of these things have deeply affected me; and should not these just suppositions affect me much more? What if I had seen with Paul those unutterable things;